Lunachicks

Pretty Ugly (Go Kart)
An interview with singer Theo Kogan
By Cunt Rock Girl

The Lunachicks have been around for ten years now. How have you guys changed?
Well, we’ve learned to play, for one thing. We had no clue how to play when we first started. We sucked. It wasn’t ’til a year after we formed that we played our first show. People loved it even though we were really bad. We’ve done a lot of playing and touring since then so if we’re not good now we’re in trouble.

Your vocals are a lot different now. You used to have more of a masculine growl and now you actually sing. Why’s that?
(laughing) I learned how. On the other records it was all from the gut but I really wanted to sing. So I learned how and I hope it doesn’t bum people out.

In your bio it says that you are punk rock’s answer to John Waters. So you guys like John Waters movies?
Yes, I just went to see Pink Flamingos a couple weeks ago at the movies. I’d seen it before a million times but it was cool to see it on the big screen and with all the extra scenes.

What was your favorite part?
It’s in one of the extra scenes when Edie the Egg Lady is calling the eggs different names. (In Edie’s nasally voice) “Mary, this is Freddy, Freddy, this is Mary.” You can tell it was cold that day, too, ’cause you can see her nipples. And I like that part when they lick the whole house. And of course the hair and costumes are genius. But I hate the part when they kill the chicken, it’s really such a downer.

You did a song on Pretty Ugly about Dear Dottie letters in the Weekly World News. Do you read that regularly?
I don’t read it a lot but when I do it’s always a treat. I’ll pick it up on tour, especially if it has a particularly twisted cover. But for years, Dear Dottie has given me quite a toot.

Kind of a Dear Abby for trailer trash?
Yeah, but Dottie’s a bitch! She’ll be completely right though, like someone will write, “Oh, well, my husband’s cheating on me but I know he loves me and we have five kids and really don’t know what to do,” and Dottie’ll say, “Get out of here, you loser!” She’s just straight to the point with no tact.

Spork: spoon or fork?
It’s a spork. I think a spoon and fork had sex and the sporks are the babies.

Awww, a match made in heaven. Or KFC. OK, Barbie: unrealistic Russ Meyer idol or bitch on wheels?
Well, Barbie is really twisted. I loved Barbie when I was little, played with her all the time, but I had this one Barbie that was way bigger than the others, like an Amazon Barbie. And I was like, “I wanna be her.” I wanted to be six feet tall, and now I’m over six feet tall in heels. But Barbie’s totally fucked, I mean, she’s blonde-haired, blue-eyed, she’s got this corseted waist, no genitals, and fuckin’ high heels. It’s horrible, but I’m obsessed and I can’t explain why.

Now they’ve got a gay Ken with genitals, not done by Mattel, obviously.
Yeah, and a trailer trash Barbie.

Mattel should endorse it and make a pile of money.
Speaking of Mattel, when we did the album cover for Pretty Ugly with the Barbie head, we wondered, “Can we do this, will we get sued?” blah, blah, blah. Then we got this letter that said that we could use Barbie’s image as long as we didn’t try to sell it, as in trying to sell an actual Barbie doll. But even then the cover artist changed a lot of the features on his computer, so we could say, “Well, the nose isn’t exactly the same. It’s not the real Barbie, honest.”

One of the covers you do onstage is Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love.” Why did you decide to do that?
The Lunachicks have a love for bad rock, except for maybe Sindy. A Lunachicks thing has always been to take the preposterous and turn it into something good. We actually haven’t played that in a long time ’cause we started doing Boston’s “More than a Feeling.” We were thinking, though, we want to do one of the ones the young kids know but we haven’t figured one out.

Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls?”
(laughs) That’s good. Would they be old enough to remember that one?

I don’t know, I was in junior high, and I’m 19 now.
That’ll work, then. Or something really bad, like…

Poison?
Ohhh, that’ll be good, or even bad Top 40, ’cause that could be fun. We almost starting doing a Go-Go’s cover but we didn’t because it would be like (stupid boy voice), “Oh, girl band doing a Go-Go’s song!” We did do an Iggy Pop song for a benefit for a LifeBeat album. It’s an album full of Iggy Pop songs and we did “The Passenger.” Joey Ramone’s on it, and Monster Magnet, Sugar Ray, a whole bunch of rad people.

The Go-Go’s used to be a punk band.
Yeah, totally.

Totally. I guess they weren’t allowed to keep at it.
I wonder, ’cause maybe they did it for business, or maybe they just liked pop. But I listen to the Go-Go’s all the time, I love ’em.

You’ve said that your look is influenced by drag queens. Do you know many drag queens?
Yes, I know the majority of the New York ones and they’re some of my best friends, like Lady Bunny. Me and Lady Bunny talk on the phone all the time but we only see each other twice a year because we’re so busy. There’s Guy, too, who has a band now called Miss Guy and the Toilet Boys. We ran into each other at a Manowar show in New York and we slowly became friends. He started doing my make-up and lending me wigs and giving me these big eyelashes. So, my look is basically a cross between drag and Barbie. Barbie’s a big idol to drag queens anyway, isn’t she? Well, not so much to the ones I know, but probably subliminally she is.

You have a song about PMS, what is it called, “Fuck” or “Shit” or…
It’s called “The Curse” (literally “*@*%!*”), ’cause we didn’t want to call it “PMS”; I mean how obvious can you get?

Right. In the song, you say, “I wanna fuck!” Why are girls hornier during that time of the month?
It’s’`cause your hormones are racing and a week before you’re like, “Whoooo, I wanna fuck!” while your body’s like, “Whoooo, I want a baby!” which is exactly what you don’t want.

So use the Pill, girls.
Or use condoms. Or a toy.

Mutual masturbation’s an option. Or develop a fetish, that’s the safest sex of all. I mean, if you worship shoes and have sex with shoes, there’s not much chance of exchanging fluids.
I had a high school boyfriend with a foot fetish. He wasn’t just into feet but it was weird.

Did he like your feet?
Oh, yeah.

That’s important.
I think so, too, I was just talking to someone about this… see, nothing on the human body grosses me out, but I was seeing this guy who had these feet, they were so bad, and he always had to take them out.

Big monkey feet?
(laughing) Kind of. That’s a good one. Some friends suggested that he was getting over his ugly feet by putting them out in the open. I don’t think a foot fetishist would ever worship my feet.

I have really huge feet.
I have really big feet, too.

What size?
I’m a 10.

I wear 11.
Whoooo!

And I’m shorter than you. I’m only 5’8″.
Wow, you’re gonna have to show me your feet the next time we play in Boston.

It’s a bitch for me to get shoes. Where do you get shoes?
As it is, I’m a shoe collector. I went to Strawberries yesterday. If you want a good cheap shoe, Strawberries and Joyce Leslie, they have designer knock-offs and some good heels.

I hear you’re a model. How did you fall into that?
Well, I started doing some modeling when I was a kid. My mom took me around to some agencies but they were like, “You’re too young, come back after high school.” By the time I got out of high school, I was like, “Fuck that shit.” Then, when was 20 or 21, I went back, and they were like (snotty voice), “Well, you know, your tattoos and, um, dyed hair are OK for the Lower East Side, but…” blah, blah, blah, and then, a couple years later, I have more tattoos and I’m on the runaways of all these big designers. So, the world just had to catch up.

To you.
Exactly. I do modeling because, for one, it’s a chance to be on a stage, two, it’s easy as shit, and three, it’s another way of being a clown.

What’s the Lunachicks’ philosophy?
Two plus two is four.